The annual “Road to Yalta” International Music Festival will be held at the end of April and early May 2021 in Yalta in the Republic of Crimea. The best songs of the period of the Great Patriotic War, which are well-known among any person living in Russia since his/her childhood, will be performed in the languages of nations of the world.
The main task of the Festival is a drawing of interest and attention to the music culture of Russia and to Crimea, which is the indispensable part of Russia, promotion of the best pieces of the Soviet and Russian art of singing, involvement of foreign viewers in our music traditions, history, value system, restoring the historical memory about the role the Soviet Nation and Red Army played in achieving the Great Victory and bringing back the original image of the Soviet and Russian soldier to the foreign audience, first of all to the Western one. That is the image of the soldier-liberator and protector. The Festival will also resemble about the terrible price our country and our nations paid for the liberation of Europe and world from the plague of fascism.
In 2021, on behalf of the President of Festival, journalist Andrei Kondrashov and Art Director of the Festival, journalist Ernest Mackevicius, the Organizing Committee of the Festival invited foreign musicians to participate in the competition and offered them to perform the best songs of the Great Patriotic War in their mother tongue. In the final of the Festival, the competitors will perform duets with Russian musicians and contend for the grand prize. The festival prize fund is 5,5 million of roubles.
During the online qualification stage, which lasted until 1 March 2021, the organizers received 300 requests from 51 countries of the world, what reflects the high interest to the project and its growing popularity. The representatives of 15 countries reached the semi-final of the festival: Austria, Argentina, United Kingdom, Israel, India, Italy, Canada, China, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, USA, Turkey, France and Sweden.
The semi-final of the Festival will be held at the Theatre named after Chekhov on 29 April in Yalta. The final gala concert will take place on the Lenin embankment in Yalta. The jury panel will determine winner. There are such famous Russian and foreign musicians and culture and art workers as Ilya Reznik, Denis Maidanov, Kai Metov, Pupo, Vadim Volchenko, Kristel Luri, Thomas Grazioso and Pyotr Kosevskiy among the juries. The panel of judges is headed by the People’s Artist of the RSFSR Lev Leshchenko.
The journalists and TV personalities Ernest Mackevicius and Tatiana Remezova will be the hosts of the final.
Besides the foreign musicians, the popular Russian artists will participate in the gala concert too. Yekaterina Guseva, Zara, Sergey Volchkov, Alexei Maklakov, Yaroslav Sumishevskiy, Oleg Akkuratov, Yuta and other are among them.
Foreign competitors will contend for the Audience Choice Award, which will be presented following the online voting on the doroganayaltu.ru website. The voting will begin on 2 April 2021 and last right until the final of the Festival.
The “Gumanitarnyi Mir” Foundation is the organizer of the “Road to Yalta” Festival. The foundation implements major socially significant projects.
The “Road to Yalta” International Music Festival is the winner of the competition of the Presidential Grant Foundation. The Festival is supported by the Presidential Administration of Russia, Government of the Republic of Crimea, Rossotrudnichestvo, All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, News Agency “Rossiya Segodnya”, International Information Agency and Radio “Sputnik”, radio of “The Komsomolskaya Pravda” and National Fund of Copyright Holders’ Support.
The general partner of the Festival is LLC “EuroTransStroy”.
Reference: Crimean Newspaper
